Gambling 3NT

I have been so busy, that I have fallen behind on my blogging. I have been enjoying the new website Bridge Winners by Gavin Wolpert among others.

Here was an interesting hand from the recent July 4th Sectional in Atlanta. In some respects bridge can be like golf. In golf, sometimes you need just the right club for a shot. In bridge, you sometimes need a particular convention. Golf limits the number of clubs you can use. Bridge allows you to use as many conventions you like, but memory and system constraints place practical limits.

The Gambling 3NT is a convention I neither like nor dislike. I typically use it because I dislike the other 3NT conventions even more. It doesn’t come up very often, but when it does it can be very successful. Continue Reading »

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Major Suit Raises

I  just finished the third class (out of four) of my 2/1 Game Forcing Series at the Atlanta Duplicate Bridge Center. 20 people are taking the series and the feedback has been very positive.

I have just added a new series to my schedule, Major Suit Raises. It will be four Tuesdays in August at the ADBC and will cover Drury, 2NT Forcing Raises, Bergen, and Splinters.

For more information see my MAJOR SUIT RAISE ad.

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Students do well at Duplicate

There are many ways to enjoy bridge. Most of my students play at home for fun. However, this week, two of my students adventured out into the world of duplicate bridge for the very first time. Thanks to Ina Parry, who runs a non-life master game at Trinity Church, they had a wonderful time. To top it off they placed second in Flight B and won .57 masterpoints. Congratulations Nancy and Beverly.

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When to Cover an Honor with an Honor

I teach a lot of beginner classes. One of the first tips I give for defensive card play is, “Second hand low (unless covering an honor with an honor) , third hand high (unless partner is going to win the trick)”

“Covering an honor with an honor,” sounds simple but it is quite a complex subject. Let’s look at some declarer issues before we look at defensive problems.


                         K94

 Q lead

                        765 


At a suit contract, you generally are going to assume that your opponents are not underleading the Ace. Try and duck twice and hope that RHO has singleton or doubleton Ace. Continue Reading »

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New Summer Class on 2/1

I will be teaching a class on 2/1 at the Atlanta Duplicate Center in June.

The class will run for four weeks, June 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th from 10:00 am to 12:15 pm.

Cost is $60.

Registration is required, please email me at sam@sammarksbridge.com 

or call me at 770-354-6033

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Morganton Hand

Emory requested some more hands, so here was an interesting hand from the finals on Sunday:

SpadeA HeartAQJT87632 DiamondKQ ClubJ

That’s nine hearts!! A 3-loser hand but I hate opening 2 Club with freak hands. Particularly when red versus white as we were on this board.

At any rate the auction went:

West                North               East                 South

                                                                      1 Heart

Pass                1 Spade                  3 Club                 4 Club

Pass                4 Diamond                  Pass                   ?


Over 3 Club I truly had no idea what to do, I cuebid 4 Club but when I bid it I knew partner would have no idea whether I had spade support or not. When he bid 4 Diamond it wasn’t clear if he was cuebidding or maybe leaving room for me to show him what suit I was slamming in. I think over 4 Diamond maybe I should have bid 5 Heart, but at the table I made the bid of  6 Heart.

The lead was the  Club 8 and this was the hand:

          Spade KQ654

          Heart

          Diamond A8542

          Club KT3


          Spade A

          Heart AQJT87632

          Diamond KQ

          Club J


Disappointing, maybe the Heart K is singleton. I played the Club K in dummy, RHO won the Club A and switched to a low diamond.  When I cashed the Heart A, RHO showed out. Down one.

In the replay at the other table, my hand opened a strong club. In a competitive auction, my hand eventually jumped to 5 Heart and played it there. So, did we lose 13? On a low club lead declarer played low from dummy and RHO won the Club Q and continued with a low club. Now declarer had to weight the possibility of  8-1 clubs versus 4 -0 hearts. At any rate declarer ruffed with the Heart T and now had to lose 2 hearts tricks. Just another routine push board.

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Game Tries

This week, my Junior coaching is going to focus on game tries. When partner raises your major suit, a game try is a bid made in an attempt to get to game. You are asking partner if he is minimum or maximum for his raise. When a game try is a suit, you are asking partner to look at his holding in that suit to help him decide whether he likes his hand or not. In standard bidding, the third bid in the following auctions are game tries.

Continue Reading »

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Morganton

Well I just got back from the Morganton Sectional/District 7 GNT finals. We had a pretty good weekend. There were 12 teams from across District 7 competing for the right to represent our District in the National GNTs, which will be held just prior to the Summer Nationals in New Orleans. There was a Swiss teams held on Saturday that would qualify 4 teams for knockouts on Sunday. With one round to go, our fate was in our hands. If we won the last match, we were sure to qualify for Sunday. If we lost, it would be a long drive back home. Continue Reading »

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Junior Coaching 4th Suit Forcing and 2 way Checkback

What’s Trumps?

1 Heart                1 Spade

2 Club                2 Diamond

2 Spade                3 Heart

 _______________________________________

1 Diamond                1 Spade

2 Club                2 Heart

2 Spade                3 Club

  Continue Reading »

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Responder’s Rebids

Back from Gatlinburg and time to continue with the Junior Coaching. This week I want to look at responder’s rebids. Most books/lessons give detailed instructions for the first three bids in an auction. By the time we get to responder’s second bid, definitions can become fuzzy. Look at the following auctions and decide if South’s last bid is F(orcing), I(nvitational), C(ompetitive) or W(eak).

1)

West                North               East                 South

                        1 Diamond                Pass                 1 Heart

Pass                 1 Spade                Pass                 3 Club

Continue Reading »

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